Tips to Boost Self Esteem

Self esteem can be tricky and elusive to some. Some people seem to inherently have it since birth, some people learn it, some unfortunately will never have it at all in their lifetime. I struggled with low self esteem for a LONG time. But now, just barely, I am in the learning process.

Just to give you some background, I am a Hispanic woman, raised in a Hispanic community. In the Hispanic culture, thick and curvy bodies are idealized - the complete opposite of the body I was given. I am an ectomorph; ectomorphs tend to be thin, and struggle to gain weight as either body fat or muscle. Basically, I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want and stay looking the same. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me how lucky I was to have this body type, I'd be a literal millionaire. But guess what, my sibling and I despised it growing up! My dad passed on that skinny gene. I was always called, "flaca" (skinny in Spanish), someone actually called me anorexic in high school (nah, man I love to eat!), and had an awful boyfriend at a young age that knew how to play on my insecurities and completely stripped me of the little self esteem I did have. Needless to say, this had some majorly damaging effects on my self esteem and eventually led to me having a very difficult time with self love. Difficulty with self love can also lead to a whole slew of issues in your romantic relationships. If you can't learn to properly love yourself, you'll always have a difficult time allowing someone to love you properly and always wonder, "Am I good enough for him/her?" "Am I bringing enough to this relationship?" "Doesn't he/she deserve better than me?"

One day, I literally said "f*ck it," and started doing the following things to aid in my personal self love journey, while working on the things that I am able to change:

• Stop comparing yourself to others - I know this can be extremely difficult in our world of social media but you just have to stop! Many people only post about the positive, beautiful things in their life. How can you compare yourself to someone's highlight reel? If you need to, take a break from social media.

• Whenever you're feeling shitty about yourself take out an actual piece of paper and pen/pencil and write down all the wonderful things about yourself, even the small things like, "I make my bed every morning," or "I have a planner I like to utilize." These small things will lead to other positive traits you can add to your list - organized, driven, prepared, etc.

• If you find yourself in a real rut, the type where you're just crying your eyes out because you can't seem to find any positives traits - again, take out a piece of paper and pen/pencil and write down all those negative feelings. When you're finished, do not keep that paper! You actually need to rip it up (such a symbolic thing to do, trust me), burn it and throw it out. Whenever I do this, I can't even remember the negative thoughts I was having about myself in the first place.

• Every morning, look in the mirror and give yourself one positive affirmation to start your day off. I find this sets a positive tone for the rest of my day. I have read that positive affirmations can sometimes make those with low self esteem feel even worse about themselves because those positive affirmations conflict too much with their current existing beliefs. To avoid this, tweak a positive affirmation to make it more believable/attainable. Instead of, "My body and I are beautiful," try, "I appreciate my body and mind because they allow me to function every minute of every day."

• Learn to accept compliments - I cannot stress this one enough! When I started dating my current partner, I couldn't even stand to have him stare at me for too long because I felt like he was going to see all my imperfections. We've been together five years now, and just last year I started actually saying thank you and more importantly, believing his compliments. Since I was never comfortable or happy with my body, any time he eluded to my body being attractive, or God forbid "sexy," I would literally get angry because in my mind, he was lying to me because having an attractive/sexy body was not my own reality. But guess what, it takes WAY too much effort for someone to lie to you every day if he/she doesn't truly believe the compliments he/she is giving you. So as uncomfortable as it may feel, just say, "thank you," and smile.

When our self esteem is higher, we're not only overall mentally and emotionally more stable and healthy, we are more resilient and radiate a positive energy that can be felt by others around you. Show yourself some kindness, your body does so much for you every second you're alive.

#Selflove #Lifestyle #Selfesteem